Trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum

I began painting at the age of nine. (Yep, that's me on the right.) At the time, I only knew of a hand full of contemporary illustrators. Norman Rockwell was perhaps the Illustrator I was most familiar with. Not only was I amazed by his talent, craftsmanship and storytelling ability but I could relate to much of his small town subject matter. For hours I used to pour over books with his artwork in it. I was around thirteen years old when I heard of his passing. I remembered thinking how sad the world would be with no new paintings from Norman Rockwell. As with a lot of my fellow illustrators the work of Norman Rockwell had a great impact on my work and from a very young age.

 

This Labor Day weekend I finally made my pilgrimage to the Norman Rockwell Museum. The Museum is nestled outside the small town of Stockbridge, MA in the picturesque Berkshires. While other small towns across the country have turned into strip malls of outlet stores, fast food shops and chain restaurant/bars, Stockbridge has retained it's small town New England integrity and charm.

 

I try to get out and visit art museums wherever I may roam. I've seen many originals from many from artists from throughout history. As I was driving to Stockbridge it occurred to me that I had never seen an original Rockwell painting. I was overwhelmed as soon as I walked in. I was familiar with nearly all of the paintings from the art books I had studied from my formative years. To see them up close and in person was a joy. However, I suddenly became "Sir" to the kind security folks at the Museum. "Sir please stay behind the ropes" Sir can you keep you hands away from the paintings". Had the ropes been electrified I'd have been slightly more consciences. But things being what they were,  I simply couldn't help myself.

 

Rockwell's, "The Four Freedom's" which were four paintings derived from the 1941 state of the Union Address by Franklin D. Roosevelt, were in a room all to themselves. The size of the paintings was imposing. I felt like I'd laid eyes on the Holy Grail complete with trumpets, angels singing and Terry Gilliam animation. It was an art religious experience.

 

Rockwell's Studio was relocated to the grounds behind the Museum in 1986. Originally the studio has been left the way it was when Rockwell died in 1978 at the age of 84. Later it was changed to a 1960s state. Seeing the workspace of other artists always intrigues me, as well. In Rockwell's Triple Self Portrait there is a helmet on top of his easel. That helmet is still on the easel. There is also a bent-up ash can next to the easel where he, no doubt, emptied his pipe. It too is still there. Last but not least was the that pipe. That crazy iconic pipe.

 

 

If you are ever in the Stockbridge, MA area, do yourself a favor and make the trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum. http://www.nrm.org/

 

"Grouchy Bastard" a self portrait.

I have a very busy mind. I'm plagued with chronic, looping introspection. It makes it difficult to sleep at night and when I'm at the easel it's sometimes maddening. I think about things like growing older, mortality, regret, love, hate, loss.. avenging my enemies.. I wondered if painting a self portrait would convey any of that ridiculousness.

 

I painted this piece with the limited "Zorn Palette" of Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light and Permalba White. My hair is black and my facial hair is black and silver. I wore a black shirt and put up a gray sheet for my backdrop. This way everything would be very neutral colors except for the skin tones. I used a single light source. Kudos to my son Zach for taking the reference shots. Awesome job!
 

 

I tried to keep the composition simple. I wanted the positive and negative space to loosely balance out. I generally try to stay away from ever centering a person in a canvas. Off center is always more interesting. I backed the figure up and to the right. This way the person isn't looking directly outside of the painting but rather looking into the painting.

 

On a scrap piece of canvas stapled to a piece of plywood, I taped off a 9.5 x 12 area and transferred my drawing down and sealed it with fixative. I took the four colors on my palette and mixed them until I had a color that did not lean toward red or ochre and who's value was somewhere around a 50%. Just a nice neutral, nothing color to put down on the canvas as a simple wash.

 

If I wanted to be a true-ist regarding my color scheme I would have established my darks with black or a black/red/ochre mix. Out of habit I reached for the tube of burnt umber. I'd already laid down a few washes before I realized it. Oops! I think it'll be ok.

 

I didn't want to spent very much time on the background. I allowed paint to drip and threw some spatters in for good measure. As usual I work from background to foreground. I spent a little more time on the shirt than I did with the background. Not a lot more time, however. I wanted most of my detail and energy to go into painting the face. I tried to keep the edges relatively soft. and the further I got away from the face, the softer the edges became.

 

 

When I paint a face I generally start with the eyes. Once I've painted the eyes, I can see life in the face. It begins to be a person to me rather than pigment on canvas. The lenses of the glasses are, of course, clear. Earlier when I painted the background I painted the lens on the left because it was made up of the background colors. The lens on the right was comprised of the colors of the face. depending on how strong a persons glasses are there is a certain amount of distortion of what is behind the glasses. My glasses aren't overly strong so the distortion level was minimal. The edges of the lenses are probably the hardest edges in the painting.

 

The facial hair and the noggin hair were next. I threw down a mid tone, indicated the darks and then hit it with the lights. The very last thing I painted was the arm of the glasses. I do use a ruler for striking straight lines. A tricky little technique taught to me by my first year teacher at Central Academy of Commercial Art, Mike McGuire.

 

The signature is last and it's done!

 

 

Thanks to Mark Thompson for helping me with the video.

 

 

Cheers!

      

100%

       

The Use of a Good Back Story.

Usually when beginning an illustration I'm provided with a manuscript, a key scene from a manuscript or in the case of trading cards a brief visual description of a scene or character. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes a brief description is not enough to go on. I can usually speak to an editor, art director or in some cases the author and ask questions to help me fill in the blanks. If none of these are available a fabricated back story can be a helpful tool. Actors use the technique of developing a back story to add depth to a character. When I ask someone to model for a painting I am essentially asking them to act a part.
 

 

The painting titled "Dolores" shown here was a painting and not an illustration so there was no narrative to follow. I knew that I wanted to do a portrait in the "Steampunk" genre so I spoke with quite a few people that were more familiar with the genre. Ultimately I spoke to one of my co-workers, Giuliana Funkhouser (affectionately known as G-Funk) and asked her to sit for the painting.

 Over lunch one afternoon I told her basically what I was looking for visually and she put together her character's back story. I asked her to talk a little about that process and Dolores' back story:

 

 

 

Fred said he would like to paint a figure sporting steampunk regalia in Zorn/Sargeant style but with a dark (& possibly brooding) feel to it. "Steampunk" can be anything you make it but I lean more towards the "punk" side of the look since my outfits are usually constructed for ease of dancing. With more elaborate projects I'll figure out what sort of fashion elements would best support a specific character idea and build an outfit from there. In this case to start I decided Dolores would be caught in conflict, wearing a fancy little hat, and packing a concealable weapon. My friends and I raided our closets for sassy and elaborate articles that would layer together nicely and provide maximum coverage appropriate to a proper assassin of the bygone days.
 

Photo by Amy Butts

"Dolores is a mercenary sharpshooter currently operating under the guise of a nanny for the elite Atlantean Nautical Quick Squad. As a girl she grew up in a town by the ocean, but as time passed the unchecked industrialization of the seacoast forced its denizens inland. Her husband - a tugboat sailor - has been estranged for many years, thought to be lost at sea. Dolores wished she could journey forth to find him but the best means to mobility was the join the army, where she scaled the ranks quickly on her wits and keen eyesight. With increased productivity and profits of the new era came the Great Air & Seas War, and Dolores had to be deployed on stealth missions behind enemy borders before her required enlistment time ran up.
Her latest job as a nanny to a high ranking commander's children has afforded her an interesting venue for society gossip, and from this position she's determined that her next target for assassination is her one and only lost husband. Naturally she is devastated at the situation but her training keeps her cool. What will happen next?"
 

 

 

On a couple of side notes,the rectangular framing element comprised of actual sprockets and watch pieces are painted over with gold leaf. Apart from the gold leaf, I used a limited palette of Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light and White. This is more commonly know as the Zorn palette, named for Swedish painter Anders Zorn (1860-1920). Zorn used this pallet of simplified primaries for his studio paintings. For outdoor paintings he was known to expand his choice of tube colors. Below is a self portrait by Zorn showing him actually using the palette.

Ode to a Friend's Passing

On March 8, 2013 my good friend of 23 year, Dennis Kauth, passed away. Aside from being a friend, father, husband, brother and son, he was an artist (though he did not look the part), an inventor, a former engineer, miniature model builder, avid outdoorsman, years ago rode with a motorcycle club, "blew things up" in the Navy... He lived a lot of lives. Back when I worked with him at TSR Inc. In Wisconsin, Dennis lived in a gray farmhouse. It was a cool place to hang out where everybody was welcome. Outside were horse shoe pits, axe throwing, potato cannons and a bone pit (I won't even go into that). In the basement was a homemade bar with a 75 gallon fish tank filled with Perch and Crappie. Every good bar needs a TV up in the corner of the room and a good sound system. There was all sorts of fishing gear and every power tool you could imagine. It was where he built things. Anything. We referred to his place as Dennisland. I always thought he should have had a big cartoon deer waving a welcome at the end of the driveway. It was also a place where you could be collaboratively creative.

 

Bottom row L to R: Dennis' wife Dorothy, me and D, and my wife Sandy.

 

Over the years I painted Dennis into a number of paintings (he was a really good character actor). He also built props for me to use in my reference photo shoots. On a couple of occasions I helped him out with a couple of his 3D projects (only in an assistant capacity). I've tried to gather up as many of those paintings here as well as a few candid pics. Some of these have stories. Some do not.

 

He was a demon face in a sandstorm. Years after the game module was published I noticed that it looked like he was about to bite that camel's ass. It makes me laugh even today.

 

A worn out old cowboy.

 

An unfortunate passerby who's about to get meat hooked.

 

A wizard. The funny part was that just prior to me taking photos he went out on the balcony of my apartment, in costume, and yelled to the kids on the playground below "Where are my people? What have you done with my people?"Sandy looked at me laughing and said, WTF is he doing?"

 

We built a small maquet of this dam, the scattered bricks and shoreline.

 

Then set the whole thing down on a mirror and shot photos of it with an extreme wide angle lense.

Dennis used to think he could make any story weirder if he could just add a ring Bologna, a monkey or a turkey baster. A few years ago I worked as a concept artist on a video game and threw a couple of ring bolognas in just for fun.

 

A creepy kidnapper.

Another wizard.

I must admit, I don't remember what this was done for.

 

At the bar in Dennis' basement we wrapped up my ex-wife up in 2 inch wide strips of cotton muslin and glopped on a bunch of clay slip.

 

Ahh the potato cannon. But it wasn't good enough when it was just white PVC pipe. It had to look like some sort of military weapon. It had a functional offset site. We talked about building a smaller one to mount onto my fishing canoe. I thought better of that idea.

I no longer have the photos of this head blaster. It was made out of PVC pipe and painted battleship gray because "it's a good sturdy color".

 

This one I managed to round up a photo of. Made from a 5 gallon bucket. The ram was sculpted out of 2 part green epoxy.

 

This book cover was originally on my schedule to paint. We started building the ship as a prop (I thought it was going to be a lot smaller than it was).  I spoke to the art director and suggested that we have the ship photographed and set against a star field. I think a real star field would have been better.
Below is a 54 second clip from a 1997 SciFi channel documentary about TSR Inc. I hope that the folks at the SciFi channel don't mind me sharing this short interview.

 

 

Somewhere Dennis is drinking mead and harassing the Valkyries in Valhalla.

 

Dancing on Light

For me a painting usually begins with a doodle or an idea. I take photographs for reference only after the idea is fleshed out. For "Dancing on Light" that process was reversed. I had a supplemental shot of my model touching her toes to a studio light. Something about the shot struck me. She looked as though she was dancing. I could picture her as a faery lit from below. However the visual image of a moth flying around a porch light was blinding me from coming up with a more attractive concept. I awoke one morning with the idea that she'd be landing on a rose that was it's own light source. It didn't make any sense but then an 8 inch tall girl with wings and antenna didn't either. I went to the hobby shop and bought some silk roses then went next door to the hardware store and bought a battery, a flashlight bulb and wire. I set it all up in my studio and shot my reference photos. The last faery I painted had leg markings that looked a bit cat-like. I wanted to do something more reptilian. I ran across some great shots of Copperhead snakes on the Internet. I took the photo of my model into photoshop and on a multiply layer, I drew the patterns onto her legs and hips.

 

  

After burnishing my drawing onto a wood panel with canvas stretched over it I layed in my darks with a burnt umber and turpentine wash. I then blocked in a wash of color. The basic color scheme was, complimentary colors, ultramarine blue and cadmium orange. There are other colors but that was the main scheme. I treated the lit up rose like a candle or small fire at night. Warm foreground with a warm glow around the light source with a cool background. My thought with the background was that the sun had gone down, you could still see the clouds in the sky against the silhouetted tree line. I took a series of out of focus photos at dusk to make sure my colors were correct. 

 

 

After painting the background I painted the roses going from the farthest back to the closest to the viewer. After the roses dried I layed down a series of thin washes to create the glow. Next I painted the wings since they were behind the figure. After that it was a matter of painting the figure and deciding what overlapped what. I painted her left leg, her right, and torso. Then the forearms, hands, face and hair. The hair seemed to disappear into the darkness so I added the flowers to help define the shape of the hair. 

 

Fine'

 

 

Journey of a Sketch

I'm an infrequent "blogger", I must admit. I'm an artist. I spend most of my time in my studio painting rather than writing about it. My hat's off to those who can do it all. When I do post on my blog I try to post new work. Occasionally I'll post old work if there seems to be a good reason. This is one of those pieces of work. Is it one of my better pieces or possibly a career defining piece? Nope. Not by a damn sight. It does, however, bare personal significance. This is more about the journey of a piece of work...

My grandparents lived next door to me for most of my childhood. In 1984 I did an ink sketch of my Grandfather. I was 19 yrs old at the time. I bought a very cheap frame, since I had a wallet full of dust. It was one of those frames you might put a perfect attendance award from fourth grade in. When I bought this frame there was a piece of paper in the frame made to look like a diploma of some sort. There was a semi-decorative border around the fake diploma so I carefully cut the fake diploma out and used the border as a makeshift mat. I framed the ink sketch and gave it to my grandfather. I don't remember him reacting strongly one way or the other but it did hang in their living room after that.

In 1989 my Grandfather passed away. My grandmother still kept the ink sketch hanging proudly in the living room. As the years went by and I'd progressed, as an artist, I looked at it with a bit less pride than I once had. Not my Grandmother. No sir! She was proud of it and proud of me. She showed people the sketch and bragged about me whenever she could.

As my Grandmother grew older Alzheimer's began to rob her of her kind and beautiful mind. She was eventually admitted to a nursing home. In her room at the nursing home the family tried to surround her with things that were familiar. There was her favorite chair, her end table, her television set and that cheaply framed ink sketch. A fact about Alzheimer's patients that I never knew was that they tend to take things from one another. My Mother labeled all of my grandmothers belongings to help the nursing staff figure out what belonged to whom. For the most part she just wrote on the back of things with a ball point pen, "property of Bessie Moore".

We lost my Grandmother in February of this year. My Mother went to the nursing home to collect my Grandmother's personal belongings. She pulled the sketch down off the wall. When she was putting the sketch into the cardboard box she noticed some writing on the back. Apparently Grandma had seen my Mom labelling her things. Sometime before the disease had robbed her of the memory of the sketch and any memory of me, she'd written on the back, "I would like for Fred to have this picture. Love, Bessie Moore."

The sketch has now journeyed full circle back to me. It has yellowed over time and now bares her additional notation. I am now 47. I keep the sketch in a flat file. I don't dare re-frame it. Monday evening I brought it out and looked at it and the note she left on the back. I ran my hand over the blue/purple ink. I thought of her peering down through her bifocals while writing her note on the back. Monday was her birthday. She would have been 92.

I miss her.

Acorn in Annapolis

The subject matter of this commissioned piece is departure for me. The focal point of the painting is the golden acorn atop the State Capitol building in Annapolis, MD. Built between 1772 and 1779 it is the oldest State Capitol in the country still in use.

In 1996, when scaffolding had been erected to replace some windows in the tower, officials had discovered that the original acorn was dry rotted throughout. There was no practical way to save the 5 - foot - 8 - inch tall, 700 lb wooden structure. It would have to be replaced. The wrought iron lightning rod/flagpole, built to Ben Franklin's specifications, was seriously unstable.

The 208 yr old acorn was removed. The new structure was built of 31 horizontal "slices" of cypress wood, constructed the same as the original. The acorn was then encased in a copper sheeting and painted gold - its original color.

My palette was comprised of cool blues, turquoise and grays to help compliment to the warm colors of the golden orb. Once the drawing was transferred to the canvas all of the architectural lines were purposefully painted without a ruler (except for the flagpole) to give it an aged and settled look. This in direct contrast to the new shiny slick surface of the acorn. The highlight on the acorn is the whitest white on the painting. The pigeons were added as a compositional element as well as an organic element.

This painting was commissioned by a member of my wife's (our) family and one of the contractors who made this happen. Salute!